Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart

 

Sudden shadow passing through me

back to temptation rebellion Ta' Iowa girl

wind gust temp drop winter rain pressure meme

Always ghosts in eye corners 'round her

figured it part of illusion love

Blued-eyed brunette

with cd collection to beat band

Loved Led Zeppelin had the Zep

Introduced me to Polly Jean

White Striped O Yeah Yeah Yeah

Raised from the dead me

skeleton woman's breath saved

O my beloved revolutionary sweetheart

Hear my hidden secrets bought

with the passion I gave

Ate the pirate ship

 sails anchors all

Two decades younger she

Me gone Kraken fool

when disappeared she

like witness protection program

key scarlet starlet

for Caine's Mutiny remake

Ahab howled six years ... Six!

Putting that on the list

And she wouldn't listen

to "Ladies of the Canyon"

when I wanted her to

And she gave all she had

to any beggar on the street

And she would

bring the homeless home

Same for rehabbed animals

And she inextricably

started hating Maddow

And she wouldn't pick a religion

or style or sexual orientation

And she agreed with bejeweled

Navajo shopkeeper chick

I was bossy Capricorn One

When I would follow

Scorpio sultry royal 

beheaded Scot princess

DNA & O those hips

to Hades or Iowa

Not sure first which

Put that on, too. That witch!

And she was never same never

when mom committed suicide

And she wouldn't change

when I wanted her to be different

And she lost her fertile mind

when I didn't want her to

Ran in family sister said

Others wagged a finger

over her paranormal normal

For me not so much a curse

much more a feature

of her muse-lit funnel cloud

eternal conundrums

All the same 

put that in negative column

Noplacia 

unsafe 

& utopian

 impossible

Chapel Perilous 

at high volume

enduring bonds

implausible

And I have been again scouring

for that psychologist

needed to deal & insulate

over each tragedy with her

And then there was time

snow-crushed Iowa

talking taking task landlord

on why big old bathtub 

smelled methamphetamine

& he threw us out 

into series of motel hells

Thirteen years ... Thirteen!

In the positive

Her shake & bake

 escape technique

It was all I could do

to think about her 

red-shifting wiggle

down the road

drafting your heart

in the undertow

when I found myself

in deep trouble

But no worries

Did the secret 

move-into-shadow fade 

like a Sioux brave

Her ghost

getting me home

One last thing

for this soul expurgigatin' list

One last thing positive

sealed with a kiss

Tho unemployable

in way unique even

for Twenty-First Century

liberal arts grad

She could recite Chaucer

in Ye Olde English

& when called 

for prompted

her eyes ignited

metaphysical

& she could make piano

sound like dinosaurs walking

Well beyond wedding bells

or any other mere mortal law

believed tentatively to exist

She had the Magdelene heart

of a bombing paper rock

stinger scissors throwing

bachelorette anarchist

~ Douglas McDaniel

Tolleson, Arizona

Mythville Bookstore

For Jaimie Ondrea Dunn

Intercepted Dispatch from a Political Theatre

Point zero nine percent

of the ninety nine percent

Punching trumpets against

dumbing down drums

humdrum passivity poison

danger Will Robinson danger!

Archangel Burnsie One. 

Archangel Burnsie One. 

Yankee Hotel Highrise.

Terminal Maximum Doubt.

Foxtrot Luxury Yacht.

Hot Cold Casino Roulette.

Are you marching? Copy.

Age of the Total Distorter

disorder imposed order chaos flow

Zombie floating dreaming denial

Normal abnormal not normal nope

Archangel Burnsie One. Copy.

Constitution won't

stop burning. Over.

A radical young cowboy mad hatter

Armed with a bullhorn crossing the light

disobeying sweet dissonance at red

Blowing hopeful to rouse the crowd

cowed army behind stuck got no green

Cemented to pavement with trickle-down needs

Collective Om snake anger slithering up the road

Intersection plugged can't get off the rug

"But this is a protest," protests he, bugged

Archangel Burnsie One. Did you say bric-a-brac ...

um what's bric-a-brac? Over. Or did you say

you threw a brick through a window? Over.

No Battle of Seattle shit that's an order. Over.

Did you eat your apple pie turnover? Over.

Tattooed nose ring rainbow female

parked after long march blocks ... Blocks!

Maybe future beloved X revolutionary sweetheart

slurping glazed-filled reward

donut holy smokes we won we won

Horizontal still standing alert

Home-brave meme-board on the floor

Inquisitor lonely warrior asking just asking

maybe a little too much Willam Burroughsie

maybe a little too much Salinger Pynchon remote

too far gone curmudgeon too smart-ass for own good

"How was the march? Was it good?"

"How did it compare to others?"

Burnsie. There were no others. Over

"Carl Jung said we need maximum

organizational change, far more than,

 to beat organized evil amassed"

"Would you like to listen to

my disenchanto cool soundtrack?"

"Did you get yourself organized, young lass?"

Oh no then oh no here it comes

words hit brain misfire somehow out loud

"Or was this a big show so everybody

can go out to lunch?"

She shudders & says "Good day, sir."

Fade away failed being normal mortal today

no more trying nothing else to say

found darkened theater ducked down Oswald low

Movie towers tumbling in smoking-sexy afterglow

lived happily ever 'cept nowhere else to go

Archangel Burnsie One

It came out of the mist

with agreeable symmetry. 

Over. Over. Do you copy?

Key rebel anthem cued for post. Over.

Electric locusts ready 

to munch White House lawn. Over.

Dorothy in Oz worried. Over.

Tango Alien Overlord Golfwaffe.

Do you copy?

Can't stop pyramid king. Over.

Laughing hysterical bad

 butterfly effects. Over.

How much change have you got?

Do you copy?

Wanted to be better man all can be

Like reading Ginsberg at church

Make appeal every prophet applies

 Aiming covert banned Gospel of St. Thomas

See bric-a-brac be bric-a-brac

See monster karate chopped already gone

but it all dispersed at the gates

of con-artist grifter carnival turn-styles

sucked into bars for well-deserved toasts

beneath glass canyon walls, immovable

~ Douglas McDaniel

Tolleson, Arizona

Mythville Bookstore

Editor's Note: The photograph of the sunset at the top of the page

 was taken in Tolleson, Arizona on Election Night 2024

A Good Walk Spoiled

Ill equipped for the club

Devo on game Twain said

was a good walk spoiled

No, I'm in costume

for the desert storm

Keeping quiet keeping

Top secret in camo fabric,

feeling airy fab for a fight

Warm body on the march

Velcro collar smoke-lit strategic 

Needing any army surplus

can get greedy hands on 

Can't make peace

without being a threat

Even if likely

get ass kicked

in military chic

stolen valor 

bric-a-brac

Maybe I should just surrender

all of my personal khaki

to Zelensky, who needs it more

than some dead peasant

on a walk-the-talk

bike & hike protest romp

Locusts of dust devils

Political demonstrations

Bank towers glass & steel

Never a shudder not once

O to be a better man ... Better, man

Superior footwear tamed the globe

Central banking & breezy jackets

Real hardcore pawn full metal

Casual wear for the multitudes

O sleeping silent majorities, thy song

tumbles numbly to stillness amid almighty

canyons of commerce safely unshaken

Meanwhile, the president

cheating by the third hole

& thy mind's eyes

gone sand-trapped mute

But what is this?

A rowdy roar of thousands?

An answer to the brute?

Now forming a great salient

everyone big wind pissed

& the anthem of rebellion

must chime right time

Maybe he'll feel crowd shot

shared on X by the Ninth?

Proton particle solar afterglow

arrival early enough gets the ghost

hum drumming ... they are coming, coming!

Strangely silent beached in retreat

Drank too much Gandhi night before

Steve Earles goin' Gandhi o Gandhi

Too many fools atop hills too long

shocked woke stiff by self-inflicted

earthquake dimension twisted 

Trumpigarchy intractable & Titanic,

oligarchy owned soulless groping nope

The sound of the crowd

Thousands howl ... the crowd,

sudden and awake ... Lionized!

But how long to howl? How long?

Surely White House operatives

running stats on the static throng now

Hours before liberty bell rung ... Hours!

O collective Om bending megahertz history

mystery change thumping up sandworms

Apache Mother vibe sending Geronimo home

for now ... hours before the bell rung ... Hours!

~ Douglas McDaniel

Tolleson, Arizona

Mythville Bookstore 

Captain Capital & the ? Marx the Oligarchy Spots

On the matter

of getting to know

your local oligarch,

your king of consumerism,

facial imprint indications

include but are not limited to:

Green fields rolled into trashy

revelries at the Monster Truck Jam,

at the cheese-breaded pizza circuses

of the National Football League

... place your bets with Draft Kings

& your debts will be held in digital cages

& you can still have semi-safe sex

& with our new plan you will receive

free exorcisms at home & out-of-pocket

matches from the burning of ancient Rome.

You can walk by the tombs

of Walmart zombie boobs ...

Trust in your local oligarch.

He charts your pain. Directs your feed.

Just get all groovy in the grooming.

- Douglas McDaniel

Tolleson, Arizona

Mythville Books

 

EMP Killed the Video Star

It's all fun and games

until your navy gets

Eee-m-Peed.

As the lights go out

in the eyes of your

Artificial Intelligence 

girlfriend, call her Deirde,

the stone scorpions

point pincer tails

in the shadows

of the moonlight

& decapitate 

faux-tree towers

kneeling before the Lord.

Sure, dead eyes did

break up with you

beforehand. Your forehand

ceased to cramp up, sure.

Your digital android replica

said you refused to clean

up your data. Said your neurosis

was interfering with her true fibers.

Copper wires do need to breathe.

- Douglas McDaniel

Tolleson, Arizona

Mythville Bookstore

Okay Then (Rally Hats On)

 By the vultures boozing above

in the lilt of southwest windy

updrafts. By the high water

mark of the Superstitions

& Apache legends

of the Great Flood.

By the virtue of endless need.

By the very tuckus

of the Great Teacher:

perpetual defeat.

By all of that easily

brain washable shit

we keep throwing

at that Wall, ya' all.

By the acceptable volume

of pee in all strawberry soda.

By all those new rats on the roof.

By all those skunks chased

into a corner beneath wooden floors.

By the seamless ineptitude

of the Masters of the Universe.

By all those false moves.

By the many Nostradami so in vogue,

elated passionate prophets (profits)

looking for lambs to whack & rack. 

By donors paid back

in double. Oh, the trouble.

By the four horses

fed buckets of babble

in the stable of great evil.

By the sun-glazed graffiti

on railroad boxcars.

By noxious weeds

breaking through cracked sidewalks.

By bits of glass. By pixilated deserts,

greedy desserts & words that hurt

& crushed stones & bottle caps

& broken arrows & the faint memory

of truth on our tongues ...

I call to you, Red King!

Bishop to Knight five ...

You better tighten your belt.

Atom Trickle Heart Down Mother Economics

Semi-conductor signals. Code is law.

Political scientists in the hallway.

Muttering in amazement.

The red tide. The dark orb closer.

Back in the Reagan Eighties.

Central banking. Pyramid power.

Ketchup is a fruit. The aisles,

candy corrupt. Bankers waving

from high towers. More candy,

dropping still. Then nothing at all.

Rainmaker, rainmaker where art thou?

Spaghetti sorcerers. Duplitous 

readers of Ayn Rand. By now seamless,

their creation. Green into digits,

digits to green. Bar code greeters

say welcome, welcome.

Run our machines, then pay.

Steel strings. Puppet flesh.

Bred to be consumers.

Golden toilets of gravity.

A schema defying physics.

Grubs & mice & scheduled rain.

All evaporating upward.

The sky is a gas lake, a gas sea.

The clouds, floating turpentine.

The enterprise always prevails.

- Douglas McDaniel,

Tolleson, Arizona

Mythville Books